Open Textbooks

Image courtesy of J-Pierre

Textbooks are also a growing part of OER. The following is a list of sites that have repositories of open textbooks:

Search Engines

• E-books on the web

Searches Internet Archive, Google Book Search and many others. Visitors should note the search engine displays each result in a new window, which may be overwhelming at first.

Public Domain

• Making of America

American education, psychology, history, sociology, religion, and science and technology books. Specializes in 1800-1900 publications. Over 10,000 books and 50,000 articles. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moagrp/

• Manybooks.net

Provides free eBooks for PDAs, iPods, or eBook readers. Books are available in several languages. http://manybooks.net/

CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-ND

• Intratext

Religious, philosophical, literary, and scientific texts in 40 languages. Over 1,000 texts in English. Licensed CC-BY-NC-SA. http://www.intratext.com/

• WikiEducator

List of free textbooks wiki format. Licensed CC-BY-SA. http://www.wikieducator.org/Free_Textbooks

• Textbook Revolution

Textbooks and select educational resources of all kinds. Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable only online as e-books. Most books are aimed at undergraduates, but there are at least a few resources at every level, from kindergarten to post-doc. All of the books are offered for free by their respective copyright holders for online viewing. They have around 500 books at by the end of 2006 they expect to have 1,000. All original text on this website is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. The categories of the textbooks are: Biology, Business & Management, Chemistry, Computers-Tech, Earth Sciences, Economics, Engineering, Health Sciences & Medical, History, Math and Physics. CC-BY-NC. http://textbookrevolution.org/

GFDL

• Free High School Science Texts

Project to build science textbooks for grades 10-12 in South Africa. Topics include Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Currently 8 books in development. http://www.fhsst.org/

• Wikibooks

Sponsored by the Wikimedia foundation (which also supports Wikipedia), Wikibooks is meant specifically for open textbooks. Subjects range from computer programming to cookbooks. All wikibooks are licensed with the GFDL license (see the License OER section for more information). More than 28,000 pages across dozens of books. GFDL license. http://www.wikibooks.org/

Various

• The Assayer

Website that provides links to free textbooks. Registered users can write reviews. The Assayer started in 2000, and has a long history of free textbooks. However, some links are broken or outdated. Over 1,000 books. Open Publication License. http://www.theassayer.org/

• Open Text Book

Textbooks on various topics. Most are openly licensed, but license does vary. Over 15 books. http://www.opentextbook.org

• Bookboon.com - Free Books for Students

Bookboon.com provides free books in the areas of economics, business and engineering.

Sources

ISKME. (2008, February 8). What are Open Textbooks? Connexions. Retrieved April 2, 2008, from http://cnx.org/content/m15226/latest/
Okerbloom, J.M. (n.d.). The Online Books Page: Archives and Indexes. Retrieved June 2, 2008, from http://www.wikieducator.org/index.php?title=OER_Handbook/educator/open_textbooks&action=edit